French DADVSI bill bans open-source software
(there are almost no English-language resources on this — only an incredibly inane /. discussion — please disseminate this information)
DADVSI (Droit d’Auteur et les Droits Voisins dans la Société de l’Information) is a French bill that was intended to destroy fair use. Think of it as DMCA on steroids. Can’t make or distribute a program or algorithm to remove copy protection from copyrighted material. Not even if removing copy protection is not the primary purpose of such a program (this is much harsher than the US Grokster standard). Can’t link to such a program or algorithm. Can’t even talk about such a program or algorithm. Oh yeah — and if you are found guilty, you face the same criminal penalties as for counterfeiting. At least the US DMCA is largely about civil, not criminal, liability…
You don’t have to take my word for it — you can read the bill (at least, in its original form) yourself. Here is the link, and here is the google cache (the Assemblée nationale server seems very slow).
Now, why did I say was? Because the bill has a new proposed amendment. If the amendment is passed, it will also prohibits open-source software.
Specifically: as far as I can tell (source here), Article 13 gets changed to
1° Le fait, en connaissance de cause, d’éditer ou de mettre à la disposition du public, sous quelque forme que ce soit, un logiciel manifestement destiné à la mise à disposition non autorisée au public d’oeuvres ou d’objets protégés par un droit littéraire et artistique qui ne comprend pas les mesures pour, en l’état de la technique, préserver ces oeuvres ou objets protégés contre un usage non autorisé.
2° Le fait d’éditer ou de mettre à la disposition du public, sous quelque forme que ce soit, un logiciel autre que celui visé au 1° ci-dessus, dès lors que, ayant connaissance de ce que ledit logiciel est manifestement utilisé pour la la mise à disposition non autorisée au public d’oeuvres ou d’objets protégés par un droit littéraire et artistique, l’éditeur n’a pas pris les mesures pour, en l’état de la technique, préserver ces oeuvres ou objets protégés contre un usage non autorisé.
3° Le fait, en connaissance de cause, de promouvoir directement la mise à disposition du public sous quelque forme que ce soit ou l’utilisation d’un logiciel visé au 1° et 2° ci_dessus.
4° Les dispositions ci-dessus s’appliquent sans préjudice de l’application des dispositions de l’article L121-7 du Code Pénal et de celles proprres à la loi du 21 juin 2004.
Which is to say, in plain English: any piece of software that could be used to distribute copyrighted material must ensure that it prevents unauthorized distribution of those copyrighted materials. Open-source software implicitly allows the user to edit the source (e.g. remove the anti-copyright-infringement code) and recompile. Therefore, any software that could be used to distribute copyrighted material in France must be closed source. Otherwise, the creators, users, distributors, and promoters of such software face the same criminal penalties as for counterfeiting.
In other words: any open-source project moving data over the network is banned. No more Apache, Firefox, OpenSSH, Thunderbird, Samba, gnomevfs, kioslaves, sendmail, vsftpd, xchat. No open-source email clients. No open-source ftp servers. Even the CUPS printing system is banned (you can use IPP to send copyrighted works to another machine’s spool directory, where someone might read it). Perhaps, even the standard C library and the kernel would also be banned (for offering the sockets interface).
(Of course, in that case, the Windows C library, in its current form, would also be banned.)
The amendment gives a whole new meaning to words like evil, boneheaded, and useless.
So why is the French parliament considering this amendment? First, perhaps the French parliamentarians are simply completely ignorant of computer technology. That seems doubtful; after all, France is a technologically advanced nation and French politicians must realize that the internet (which is build on open standard and open source) is vital for economic prosperity. Second, it might be a strawman put forward by the BSA and the french RIAA: by comparison to their rediculous amemdment, the original text of the DADVSI bill seems almost reasonable. Parliamentarians would vote agains the amendment, for the unamended DADVSI, BSA gets $$$, and consumers get the shaft. Or perhaps — just perhaps — the BSA decided to go for the jackpot. If the amendment is not passed, well, they are back to where they started at. If they amendment passes, they ban Linux in one medium-sized countries and get to assrape 60 million consumers.
So, if you live in France — hell, if you live in the EU — FIGHT DADVSI! Fight the BSA’s amendment, fight the original text of the bill, fight whatever politicians were arrogant enough to put the bill before the parliament.
Écrasez l’infâme!